Crtd 06-01-28 Lastedit 15-10-27

The Triangle Operetta: Curtain
 

Wednesday. Triangle operetta #7

At eight, after having dropped my boys at my own yard, I arrive with my pickup at Benedict's workshop with the materials and tools he had used on mine. Since I had myself bought all parts for the new keel, including a new belt for the planer, the question was what would remain for me to pay for labour. TSh 80 000/= Benedict judged. Euro 60. And my boys could use the power drill for one more day.
I thought of the standoff with Daniel yesterday at sunset. Now, as an additional discipliner, only one more day to use the power drill! Would all that be of any use to shorten the triangle operetta? Would everybody realize what it would mean if the 48 holes would not have been drilled at sunset?
A second triangle turned out not to not fit. Shire takes it back to his welding machine. How would it come out?
A drill snapped in the wood of the board, but just stuck out a little and was extracted.
At sunset all holes were drilled. On the way home, Daniel and Gabriel were rubbing their painful wrists. To celebrate, I paid my four drillers TSh 1000 off the budget.

Thursday. Shopping for the flat bars and bolts, triangle operetta #8

Wait!
A familiar cry when I am leaving for some business in town. That means someone had thought of something. This time it was Daniel. With a lot of effort I had obtained a list of bolts to be bought, and I had to return the power drill to Benedict at 08:00 hrs. I had 15 minutes.
Weeks ago, we had already resolved to fix planks outside of the boards where the triangle bolts come out. On the planks we would fix flat metal bars with holes to let through the bolts. The washers of the bolts should press on that metal. Daniel was now taking the measures for the flat bars. I had to wait because he wanted to join me to by the flat bar in town.
I waited 10 minutes, then told them this took too long and drove off to deliver the power drill in time.
On return form town, Daniel was still measuring. His shopping for the metal bars, and having them welded in shape took the rest of the day.
The painters start to put linseed inside the hull. I am as lucky as the Tanzianian people are desperate: no rain for weeks, so my bottom is dead dry and soaks more than 20 liters of linseed oil, in five painting sessions, with ease.
I tell Gabriel I am broke. Am am Invited for food. I they still eat food presentable to me I do not yet pity them.
The rest of the yard looks like this:

Photo: triangle operetta, no jobs: Daniel is shopping, too late of course, for flat metal bars to mount at the outer countersides of the triangles already discussed for two weeks

On taking Daniel back to the yard, I have another standoff with police (see pickup permit standoff). This was the closest I thusfar came to the ideal flic flac. My only error was to overdo the incitement of the crowd. Not only did I create a dangerous situation for the policeman, but since a larger part of the crowd will enter a beating before knowing who is the one to be hit, I might have caught an unlucky blow too, not to speak about the cost of repairing my pickup truck. Good side effect: Daniel was in my car. I hope my trick has impressed him and made him understand it is important to become serious once it comes to paying his debt to me.
Unfortunately Daniel miscalculated his flat bar purchase downward. One bar for three bolts was redesigned as three seperate square giant washers. I resigned.

Friday. Triangle operetta #9: Fitting flat bars, wood planks, and triangles and bolting them together.

My Standard Chartered money balance is euro 92,71 the phone helpdesk girls says. No arrival of my wiring 10 days ago, nor from my speed wire three days ago, nor from Ernest, who would bring my money to Standard Chartered Jinja 4 days ago. Cranes for launching may cost Tsh 300 000, after that I will have some 150 000 (100 euro) in my wallet.

We suffer a prolonged power cut at Isamilo: the inner and outer temperatures of fridge have reach equality. Since we use no power from Feleshi at the yard my laptop battery as well as my cellphone empty.

I get a visit of a very suspect looking guy called Abel ("I am not Kain, my name is Bert"). His this or that Ltd is work for Mbongo, a government organisation in charge of registering me. He needs to do a survey of my ship to calculate the fee on the basis of its "free surface". Whether I know what this is.
No.
Abel does not explain, pretending the concept of a free surface is to complicated for a simple ship builder like me. Just leave it to him.
I call Mwanza Yacht Club commodore and former Mwanza marine superintendent Oscar Munisi. He knows the guys, I should not worry. I refrain from calling another friend, the present marine superintendent Alex Mchauru

Saturday. Triangle operetta #10: curtain

Photo: triangle operetta, curtain: triangle bolts fixed with flat metal bars (in yellow ellipse)

Sunday. free

My room at Isamilo is now an absolute mess (click here to see it, but I would not do it if I were you). I cleaned it. We have no power for three days now. And no water. No washing. My giant 240 AH battery is in urgent need of recharging. I learned that the power cut is due to a transformer total loss and might last three weeks. Stealing transformer oil is a popular type of crime, the thing burns and a new one has to come from South Africa. Since our water pumps are electrical this also means power nor water at Isamilo before the dhow has become habitable. Why stay here? Even the Kamkala Soap becomes boring.

Monday: Triangle operetta: encore, bow harness.

Photo: Triangle operetta, encore: Gabriel (left) and Daniel studying all wrong bolts they have ordered
I arranged them according to size to help them, and forced Gabriel to write, encore, his next (really last this time??) order in my exercise book

To my surprise, a gadget I had thought about but cancelled after the ordeal of the triangle operetta, believing firmly it would not be finished before July and be even less effective than the Shire polyhedron, turned out to be standard procedure in Mwanza dhow building. I did not even need to interfere: a specialist welder made my bow harness in two days. It was mounted in one day, even though I interfered to have the inside painted with red oxide first and the bolted keel addition caused mounting problems..

Photo: Bow harness left, at the welding workshop, in the making (with my two low tech anchors, 40 and 50 kilo), right: mounting

Photo: the watching crowd had assumed a size to attract ice cream sellers

Photo: Mama Simon (next to me) makes our tea (with chapatti) and lunch every day (her kitchen is right behind me)